


I'll Come Around (If You Ever Want to Be in Love)

by grumpybell



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8567689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpybell/pseuds/grumpybell
Summary: Bellamy's crush on Clarke is a sort of open secret. Everyone knows about it, but it's been so long that no one gives it much thought, even Bellamy. He can't remember what it's like not having a crush on Clarke anymore. It's his normal.- - - prompt - Bellamy is crushing hard on Clarke, he finally caves & only tells Raven about it. Eventually he does kiss Clarke.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for @emmaajjones on tumblr from the prompt "Bellamy is crushing hard on Clarke, he finally caves & only tells Raven about it. Eventually he does kiss Clarke."
> 
> I'm sorry it took so long!

 Bellamy's crush on Clarke is a sort of open secret. Everyone knows about it, but it's been so long that no one gives it much thought, even Bellamy. He can't remember what it's like _not_ having a crush on Clarke anymore. It's his normal. Anyone who's spent more than ten minutes with the two of them is aware of his feelings, unless that person is Clarke herself, who has a blind streak a mile wide when it comes to Bellamy's more than obvious infatuation.

Clarke had been his next door neighbor when they were kids, which was something of a fluke, considering the gaping hole between their families socio economic circumstances, but due to Bellamy's neighborhood edging up onto the cusp of gentrification and Clarke's dad working as a risk taking real estate agent, she'd ended up in the rehabilitated house next door, which made his own house's sagging porch and flaking paint look even sadder.

He'd been nine, when Clarke moved in. She was a force of nature- eight, bossy, and with a self confidence Bellamy could only dream of possessing. They'd hated each other. No one can seem to remember when they stopped, just that Bellamy versus Clarke had one day become Bellamy and Clarke versus everyone and everything else.

They're an odd pair. On the surface the only thing they seem to have in common is a terrible track record with relationships. For Bellamy it had been a series of casual flings, a girlfriend no one liked, and then one everyone liked but didn't stick. Clarke's history was shorter, but messier, a cheating ex-boyfriend, an intense but brief relationship with an ambitious and somewhat terrifying law student, and a short lived rebound with a girl who owned one of the local thrift stores.

Clarke seems to find comfort in the fact that, at 23, she's slightly less of a disaster than him at 24.

“Three dates,” she tells him, throwing her feet up on his coffee table, even though she's completely aware that he hates that.

“What?” Bellamy asks as he shoves at her legs with one hand and balances a heaping plate of cookies with the other. Her boots slide off the coffee table, leaving a distinctive scuff behind. To be honest, in five minutes he won't be able to tell it apart from the other scratches and scrapes she and Octavia have left all over his table. It's almost like they're doing it on purpose.

“That's how many dates I went on with Niylah before we called it quits. Which means I'm winning. How many dates have _you_ had since you and Gina broke up?”

“Dates?” he asks around a mouthful of cookie. “Does a tindr hookup count as a date?”

“No.” Clarke snags a cookie off his plate. Bellamy stress bakes, and the fact that he's been officially unemployed for two whole weeks has his stress levels through the roof. Bellamy doesn't _do_ unemployment. He _always_ has a job, usually more than one.

“Then none.” Which was kind of the point, not that he's going to tell her that. He's finally come to the conclusion that there's no point in dating when you're stupidly hung up on someone else. But only Raven and Miller know that he and Gina broke up because it became painfully clear that he couldn't open up to her like he could to Clarke. Miller knows because he and Bellamy have terribly thin walls. Raven knows because she and Gina are close, and, Bellamy suspects, have recently taken that to a romantic level, but he figures it's not his business to ask for confirmation. Sometimes he misses things with Gina, how easy that could be, but he doesn't actually want to go back.

“I just think you should get back out there,” Clarke says. She's on her third cookie, but Bellamy has eight other batches in his kitchen, so he's in no danger of running out.

“What I need is a job.” The economy is down and the restaurant he'd been working at for the past seventh months had closed rather suddenly. He'd been looking for a second job for the last month or so anyway, but now he's faced with _no_ job and that's frankly terrifying. And he can't afford it. He'll barely make rent this month, there's no way he'll manage next month if he can't find employment. Even if he weren't stupidly in love with his best friend, dating is literally the last thing on his mind.

“I just feel like...” Clarke is looking down at the last bite of her cookie, instead of at him, “things have been different for you since you and Gina broke up. It feels like you've given up.”

Bellamy blinks at her. He's surprised she's noticed, which is stupid. Clarke is his best friend. She's _right_ , he has “given up” in a sense. But not permanently, only until he either mans up and manages to tell Clarke he loves her or, more likely, forces himself to get over her enough to function in a romantic relationship. It could happen. Someday.

The oven timer saves him from answering. “That's the oatmeal raisin,” he says, relieved, and escapes into the kitchen.

“No one even _likes_ oatmeal raisin!” Clarke yells after him.

And that, he thinks, will be the end of it. Except it isn't, because Clarke becomes weirdly fixated on setting him up with someone. He's able to put her off for a week with excuses of job hunting and the evening babysitting gig he gets from Monty and Miller (he's not sure they need a babysitter _that_ often, but he's too proud to ask if they're taking pity on him). Then he succeeds in landing a job as an assistant manager at small used bookstore and he doesn't have unemployment to use as a shield for Clarke's nagging.

“Why does she care who I'm dating, anyway?” he asks Raven. She ignores him, punching a complicated series of buttons on her xbox controller and effectively destroying him. Bellamy never had any gaming consoles growing up and he's never caught up on any of the skills needed to be anything more than useless at them. Raven enjoys beating him. Bellamy refrains from pointing out that beating him isn't really any sort of accomplishment.

“Probably because she feels guilty,” she answers, finally, still smirking at her victory.

Bellamy's stomach plummets. Does Clarke know how he feels about her? “About what?”

“Gina dumped you after that weekend where you were in Maine with Clarke and Gina's dad died. You think Clarke didn't notice that? She thinks she ruined your last relationship because you stayed with her instead of going back to be with Gina.”

“Clarke was in the hospital! Was I supposed to abandon her there?” Bellamy protests. He hates thinking about that weekend. Being Clarke's best friend means that he's also her emergency contact. He hadn't really ever expected he would get a phone call. Then he had, and he'd almost had a heart attack on the spot, finding out that Clarke had been in a car crash while on vacation in Maine and that they couldn't tell him how bad it was. Of course he'd gone. He wasn't going to leave her in a strange hospital alone. By the time the call had come in about Gina's dad he was already at Clarke's bedside.

“I'm not accusing you of anything,” Raven says, calm, even. “Though are we still doing that thing where I pretend like I don't know you love Clarke? Because everyone knows, Bellamy.”

“Besides,” Bellamy jumps at the sound of a voice behind him and Raven and twists his head to see Gina standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “That's not why we broke up anyway.”

Bellamy still feels guilty when he sees Gina. “It was a factor, wasn't it?” he asks. He almost doesn't really want to know the answer.

“It was...” Gina pauses, “a clarification. I wasn't mad that you stayed with Clarke, Bell. She needed you and there wasn't anything you could do here anyway. And it's not like I thought that you were _choosing_ her over me or anything. If the roles had been reversed and I was in the hospital and Clarke had just lost a parent, I know you would have been in the hospital with me too. But that's when I really realized that if Clarke and I needed you the same amount at the same time, you'd go wherever you thought was the _right_ place to go, because you're a good person, but you'd _want_ to be with her. It's not your fault, I know you can't help it, but I want to be in a relationship with someone who would want to be with _me_.”

She's right. Bellamy _knows_ she's right. He always wants to be with Clarke, if he can. It's why he's not up for dating anyone else right now, but he feels guilty that it took Gina figuring it out for him to face it. She deserved better than that.

“I am sorry,” he tells her, even though he's told her before.

“I know, but you don't need to be.” Gina leaves her spot in the doorway and perches on the arm of the sofa next to Raven.

“Okay,” Raven is looking between the two of them, “as fun as it is to watch Bellamy squirm, I'm starving. Who's up for Thai?”

Bellamy takes the escape he's being offered and goes to dig through Raven's kitchen drawers for the takeout menu.

It turns out that understanding Clarke's possible motives for trying to set him up isn't all that helpful. She's still insistent and he's still resisting. He doesn't know what to tell her, aside from the truth, which he's just not ready for.

“Is it because she's so tall?” Clarke asks. She's waving a her phone in front of his face with the photo of the sixth straight girl he's told her he's not interested in. “Because you shouldn't not go out with people because of their height.”

“It's not because she's tall,” he tells her, trying not to grit his teeth. She's wearing on his patience with this whole thing and he's not sure how much more he can take.

“Then what's the problem?”

“I just don't feel like dating anyone. I've _told_ you that.”

“I'm just trying to help you get past Gina,” Clarke insists.

Bellamy suppresses a growl of frustration. “I am _already_ past Gina, Clarke. I am very, very past Gina. We're friends now, things are fine, I swear.”

Clarke looks doubtful, chewing on her lower lip and he realizes there's only one way she's going to easily let this go.

“Okay, look, I'll go on a date. Pick someone, I don't care who. But after that you leave me alone about this, okay? I'm not secretly pining over Gina, if I wanted to go on dates I could, so I do this and then this madness stops. Deal?”

Clarke appears momentarily taken aback. “Really? You'll let me set you up?”

“That's what I said.”

Her eyes narrow. “You won't back out at the last minute?”

“Jesus, if you're going to pester me as much about this even after I've agreed maybe I _will_ change my mind,” he complains.

“I'm not! I'm going to find the perfect girl for you, Bell,” she says, eager. He bites his tongue and doesn't tell her that he already knows exactly who that would be.

Clarke sets him up with a leggy brunette named Roma, and she's _nice_ , Bellamy thinks, as he sits across from her at dinner on Friday night. She's perfectly nice and very pretty and he'd have been fine hooking up with her if he met her at a bar or come across her profile on tindr, but as it is, he's just counting the minutes until he can get home and fall into his bed for a good night's sleep.

He tries to at least seem engaged. He listens to her story about her older brother, who is a marine, and he even genuinely laughs at a anecdote about her cat, but everything she tells him just makes him think about what Clarke would say if she were here. He's hopeless. But he already knew that. He's at least pulling off polite, if uninterested, he thinks.

Near dessert, Roma smiles and looks him straight in the eyes and says, “Clarke told me you were claiming you weren't interested in anyone right now. She really didn't believe you, but I'm starting to.”

He feels himself flush. He hasn't meant to be a shitty date, but he probably has been. “I'm sorry. I tried to explain to her, but she feels like she accidentally ruined my last relationship and she wants to 'fix' things for me, which is really not what I'm looking for right now. I'm really sorry you got caught up in the middle of it.”

To his surprise, Roma laughs. “It's really not a problem. I figured best case scenario I'd get laid and worst case scenario I'd get free food. Either one is a win in my books.”

“Sorry to be your worst case scenario,” Bellamy tells her and she laughs, warm, and the last twenty minutes of the date are better than the the entire first hour. Roma would be a cool person to have as a friend, and since it's clear to both of them that the date is going nowhere, he even asks her how she'd feel about that.

She shrugs. “I'm already friends with Clarke. It's a miracle we hadn't already met, what with how much she talks about you.” And that seems to settle it. It's not the worst way to spend a Friday evening, making a new friend.

What he doesn't expect is to find Clarke sitting on his sofa when he gets home, chewing on her nails.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, shocked.

“I wanted to see how your date went.” There is decidedly less enthusiasm in Clarke's voice than he's used to when they're on this subject. She looks, if anything, nervous, but he has no idea what she would have to be nervous about.

“You know,” he tells her, as he tosses his coat onto an armchair and collapses on the sofa next to her, nudging her feet off the coffee table, “if it had gone really well, this could be a very awkward situation right now.” He's joking, mostly. It is weird that Clarke is here, waiting for him after his date, like there was no chance he might be bringing Roma home. Okay, so there was no chance he might be bringing Roma home, but _Clarke_ doesn't know that, and therein lies the problem.

Clarke's cheeks go a pretty shade of pink. “Oh my God, I didn't even think of that. I shouldn't have-”

“Clarke. It's fine. It wasn't like that. Roma's cool, but we agreed to be friends.”

She blinks at him. “What? Why? What could possibly be wrong with her? Did you _see_ her?”

“Yes, I saw her Clarke. She's beautiful. I liked her. She's just not what I'm looking for.”

The expression on Clarke's face is not one that he's seen before, which is kind of remarkable. He's known her since she was eight, he thought he knew every single one of her facial expressions. There's irritation there, but also something softer.

“I don't understand what you want,” she says, finally, clambering off the sofa and disappearing into the kitchen. He doesn't move for a few moments, confusion pulsing in his veins. If he's reading the situation right, Clarke is _mad_ at him. She always gets calm and quiet when she's the most upset.

He finds her at the sink, furiously scrubbing at his dishes, and that does it. Clarke _hates_ doing dishes, but when she's upset she has to do something with her hands. It makes Bellamy suddenly, intensely angry. All he's done is exactly what she wanted and she's acting insane about it.

“Are you seriously mad at _me_ right now?” he demands.

Clarke doesn't look at him. “I'm not mad at you, Bellamy.”

“Bullshit. You're only like this when you're pissed.”

“I'm pissed at _me_!” Clarke whirls to face him. “Gina was my fault, and you can pretend like it wasn't all you want, but I'm not an idiot! And then I finally get you to agree to this date and you don't even like the girl I set you up with and I-”

“-I did _like_ her, but if you would just _listen_ to me for two seconds you would know I'm not looking for a relationship with _anyone_!” He doesn't know when he started shouting.

“Why the hell not?!”

“Because there's no _fucking point_ when I'm already in love with _you_!” The words are out of his mouth and hanging in the air before he has a chance to think about saying them. It's like every muscle in his body locks up. He's kept it in for _years_ , only to blurt it out now. Clarke's mouth is open in surprise. They're both silent for several long moments before Bellamy's brain catches up.

“Shit. Forget I said that. We'll just pretend this never-”

“-Bellamy,” Clarke interrupts and there's still surprise all over her face, but she seems to have gathered herself. Now would be a great time for the floor to swallow him whole.

“Seriously, forget it, Clarke.” He's begging, straight up begging, because this was not supposed to happen and he doesn't know how to move forward from here, not after years of it being hidden.

“ _Bellamy_ ,” she repeats, firm. “Listen, I've been so angry at myself, because I never meant to come between you and Gina. I _like_ Gina, and I hated thinking that if it weren't for me you could be so happy right now. But _tonight_ I was mad at myself because I set you up with this great girl and then I realized that I didn't want you to like her. I was _relieved_ that you didn't like her and that's so shitty of me, you know? I should just want you to be happy, I _do_ , I just...”

Bellamy is fairly certain his heart is leaving a bruise agains the inside of his chest, but if Clarke is saying what he thinks she's saying... He takes a step closer, almost unconscious, and Clarke stops talking, just looks up at him with wide, nervous eyes. It's now or never, he thinks.

“You're my best friend.” His voice comes out hushed and raspy. “And I'm in love with you.”

He leans in slow enough that she has plenty of time to pull away, but she doesn't, and there's just a moment where he can feel her breath ghosting over his lips, but then he kisses her.

Somehow, Clarke's arms end up around his neck, dragging him down, and it goes from tentative to a little too enthusiastic, somewhat messy. Bellamy leans back from her, feeling light and unbelieving. Clarke's smile is wide.

“I always thought if I ever got the courage to do that it'd be really romantic,” Bellamy laughs. Clarke swats at his arm.

“What are you talking about, that _was_ romantic, idiot.” And then _she_ kisses _him_.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey loves, 
> 
> I thought a little update on my life and why it's been so long since I posted _anything_ was in order (I'll probably add a similar note at the bottom of the next chapter of Home, since it's my only WIP), so I've basically just had a really busy time since I last posted. I moved to NYC without a job or any furniture and had to furnish an apartment and find a job (which I finally did, yay for being able to work and feed yourself!) and I've been quite stressed, which tends to lead to writer's block. I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things now that my personal life has settled down a bit. Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Erin


End file.
